Owen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is a movie that lives in its own special sphere. Simply put, I think it may be the most fascinating horror film ever made…that’s not scary.
The most fascinating horror film ever made that is scary is “Psycho”; that’s because it’s the ultimate film to watch yourself watching.
And let’s be clear: I realize that “The Shining” is widely considered to be a terrifying movie. But I saw it the night it opened — on May 23, 1980 — and have seen it a dozen times since, and while the film’s mood and mysteries have deepened for me, to the point that I find it a uniquely seductive piece of cinema, I have always had the same problem with it, going back to that very first viewing.
In “The Shining,” we watch an enormous metaphysical puzzle from the dark side, a ghost story where the ghosts rise up from the Overlook Hotel to weave in and out of the madness of Jack Torrance, the aspiring novelist played by Jack Nicholson.
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